Monthly Archives: February 2011

Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries, has an excellent op-ed in tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal. He explains the essentials of the philosophy that drives both his company’s extraordinary success and his own commitment to upholding the principles of free enterprise: Years of tremendous overspending by federal, state and local governments have brought us face-to-face with an economic crisis. Federal spending will total at least $3.8 trillion this year–double what it »

I’ve been muted in critiquing the Obama administration’s cautious response to uprisings in the Middle East, mostly because it hasn’t been clear to me that a more aggressive course would have been better. At Commentary, Peter Wehner makes the most persuasive case I’ve seen that the administration has been weak, and that the consequences are dangerous: According to a story in Sunday’s Washington Post, as President Obama and his advisers »

That’s what Sarah Palin yelled at Gabrielle Giffords before she was shot, right? Or was it Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh? Just kidding. Conservatives don’t talk like that. But liberals do–as we are now learning, they do it a lot. This time it was Rep. Gordon Hintz (D Oshkosh) who, immediately after the Republicans had passed their budget in Wisconsin’s Assembly, turned to Rep. Michelle Litjens (R-Winneconne) and yelled, “You »

Democrats love the regulatory state. Now that the Obama administration knows it can’t get anything through Congress, it is trying to “enact” as much of its left-wing agenda as possible through administrative action. To be sure, President Obama has talked a bit about cutting back on over-regulation. But no one believes that he has anything but cosmetic changes in mind: he is determined to extend federal regulation of the economy, »

Big Government posted this funny video of Communists in Madison, Wisconsin, who are convinced that the revolution is just around the corner. First Tunis, then Cairo, then Tripoli–and now, Madison! Christian Hartsock traveled to Wisconsin on behalf of Big Government and was invited to a meeting of the local chapter of the International Socialist Organization. Some of the Communists at the meeting turned out to be representatives of public sector »

Amazingly enough, it exists. The web page of the Al-Gaddafi International Prize for Human Rights is here. The prize’s motto is, “As the sun shines for everyone, freedom is a right for everyone.” Touching, huh? The prize is awarded every year to one of the international personalities, bodies or organizations that have distinctively contributed to rendering an outstanding human service and has achieved great actions in defending Human rights, protecting »

Governor Scott Walker’s office released this statement earlier this morning: Title: Walker to Senate Democrats: One Day Left to Save the State $165 million Madison-One component of Governor Walker’s budget repair bill is debt refinancing, which will save taxpayers $165 million in fiscal year 2011. According to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, if Senate Democrats refuse to return to Wisconsin and cast their votes in the next day the option to »

For some time, the Democrats have been plotting to shut down the federal government–well, not really a shutdown, but the sort of temporary suspension of nonessential activities that the press calls a shutdown–in hopes that the public will blame the Republicans, as happened in 1995. Many observers, however, have argued that times are different now, and most voters don’t want the GOP to be bullied into going along with another »

Daily Caller reporter Matthew Boyle draws our attention to the fawning coverage Politico reporter Amy Parnes gives to Michelle Obama’s crusade against obesity. Parnes. Boyle argues, might as well be regarded as an unpaid press agent on the First Lady’s behalf. Parnes in particular wants to criticize conservatives who have taken aim at the First Lady’s self-chosen cause as another manifestation of the nanny state. But who can deny that »

I caught just enough of the Academy Awards broadcast last night to find best cinematography winner Wally Pfister (“the p is silent, as in phthisis, psychic, and ptarmigan”) make a point during his acceptance speech of thanking his union crew on “Inception.” ABC News posts Pfister’s elaboration of his point backstage. There he explained that everything good in his life derives from his union: “I think that what is going »

If you missed it over the weekend, Eric Lipton responded to emails from us and our readers, and attempted to justify his article about the “Billionaire Brothers,” Charles and David Koch. My analysis of his response follows: On February 21, Eric Lipton of the New York Times wrote an article titled Billionaire Brothers’ Money Plays Role in Wisconsin Dispute. Lipton’s perspective on the controversy swirling around Wisconsin’s state finances–it’s all »

The estimable Bing West is the author of The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan, just published by Random House. Andrew Exum, a former Ranger officer with combat experience in Afghanistan, reviewed it for the Wall Street Journal’s Saturday Review section the weekend before last. Yesterday’s New York Times Book Review featured the review by former Times combat correspondent (now New Yorker staff writer) Dexter Filkins »

It started last summer with Jane Mayer’s New Yorker article “The billionaire Koch brothers’ war against Obama.” Now the battle of Wisconsin has given the occasion for the left’s renewed assault on the Koch brothers. Yet the assault on the against the Koch brothers has virtually no truth in it. It is an ideological mugging akin to Barack Obama’s assault on the Supreme Court’s Ctiizens United opinion, with similar motives. »

Some years ago, we did media alerts when we were going to be on national radio or TV shows. We generally don’t do that now because we are, you know, blase. But tonight I am making an exception. Tomorrow morning at 6:30 Eastern time, 5:30 Central, I will be on Bill Bennett’s Morning In America radio show to talk about events in Wisconsin and the Left’s bizarre attack on the »

After repeated attempts, Judicial Watch has managed to pry loose certain documents relating to Teddy Kennedy from the FBI. The FBI’s original redactions plainly had nothing to do with national security, so the agency apparently was trying to protect Kennedy’s reputation. The most entertaining documents relate to a trip Kennedy took to Latin America in 1961. He visited a number of countries, accompanied by his “political counselor.” In each country, »

Governor Scott Walker was on Meet the Press this morning. Host David Gregory immediately began parroting the Left’s talking points, but Walker acquitted himself well: GREGORY: So that context is important, because there’s collective bargaining, which you’d like to limit. And there are those, the specific contributions that you ask the unions. They said they would do that. They would meet those demands. So the question that comes up again and again, is if »

Today’s installment of our long-running series comes courtesy of London’s Telegraph: “Cancer sufferers refused life-extending drugs despite Government pledge.” The Telegraph reports: An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered more than 80 cases in which desperately sick NHS patients have been refused the cancer drugs their doctor sought, in the four months since a £200 million fund was introduced to stop health authorities rationing treatments. The fund was a »